Saturday we shoveled manure. Because of a variety of reasons, not limited to ones such as having a baby, working full-time, graduating a teenager and getting him off to college 4 states away, the barn has not been cleaned out for close to 3 years. Since we use the old manure pack technique, it is supposed to be done once or twice per year. The eight foot ceiling in the barn is about 6 feet high right now. Being 5'11, walking where the goats walk makes me feel I need to duck. This isn't like grain-fed cow lagoon slop. This is hay and grass-fed, thick, healthy stiff garden fertilizer. You won't find lethal e-coli, or John's diseases in this stuff. It smells, but not that sick smell - I actually like the smell of healthy manure.
I paid a friend of my daughter's to come help, and we made a party of it. My daughter has been my manure-shoveling buddy several times in the past. She wouldn't admit it, but I think she actually enjoys working with me doing this.
My brother rebuilt a 4-sided small tractor-pulled wagon we've had since we were children (I'm 43), that we use among other things, to transport the manure from the barn to the garden. It took him about a year to get the trailer rebuilt, but it is a pretty, bright green trailer. Behind the red Farmall, it looks like Christmas. The only good part left on it before his work was the metal fork, axle and tires. It amazes me to look at a 30 y/o reconditioned trailer. It is like an old friend.
The far half of the garden has been fallow for 15 years. Back then, I tilled, raked and seeded half of the acre garden to become lawn, all by myself, so my aging parents could have a more manageable size place to work. The plan is to make it back into garden again. We will fertilize it by letting the manure sit through the winter, and then till it in, in the spring. We will make it back into the big garden it once was, and maybe I'll make it to the farmer's market next summer to sell the extra veggies I grow in it.
We have 15-20 goats and 7 or so sheep. 3 years of manure accumulation in the barn is, well, a big job. We have it about 1/10th done from one entire afternoon. But we did find the concrete floor of the barn. It is amazing how inspiring it feels to see a huge pile in one corner of soil that has been fallow for 15 years. The manure is chock full of earthworms. There are no artificial hormones; virtually no antibiotics; very little medication in this manure. My neck and shoulder are pleasantly stiff.
3 years ago, the last time we did this, my husband's neice was visiting from their farm in Colorado. She helped for just a few hours. She told us she had never done this by hand. Her father had a front end loader. Our two Farmalls are not equipped with front end loaders. Manure and garden forks (the hand kind) cost about $25-30; and shoveling is an EXCELLENT weight loss program. Plus, it makes me feel good to see all those earthworms. It means my barn, despite being full of manure, is healthy, and they are all going into my garden to grow healthy food next summer. Talk about a job that connects you with your food.
It gives me a wonderful sense of well-being. Everyone should have to shovel manure and grow a garden.
Monday, October 15, 2007
New York Times article on Farm Bill and Subsidies
See the article, "Today's Harvest of Shame," by Dean Kleckner, if it will let you persue the link. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html
He is past president (1986-2000) of American Farm Bureau, which I belong to. He thinks we ought to do away with subsidies, like New Zealand.
I am working on the book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," by Michael Pollan. The reasons Dean makes for doing away with subsidies sound a lot different than author, Michael Pollan's explanations. Dean leaves out Cargill. He says it has something to do with competetiveness in the world market. I haven't figured it out yet, but I will be following this story.
He is past president (1986-2000) of American Farm Bureau, which I belong to. He thinks we ought to do away with subsidies, like New Zealand.
I am working on the book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," by Michael Pollan. The reasons Dean makes for doing away with subsidies sound a lot different than author, Michael Pollan's explanations. Dean leaves out Cargill. He says it has something to do with competetiveness in the world market. I haven't figured it out yet, but I will be following this story.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Cheese in the Springhouse
Two days ago, I pasteurized between 4 and 5 gallons of milk. I really wanted to make another round of goat cheddar like the one I made a little over a week ago, but Timothy is graduating from high school a week from today. We are throwing a big party here on the farm, provided it doesn't rain, and I couldn't use up another whole day off making goat cheese. Poo, poo, poo. I did make some more Chevre. And I ate a whole bunch of it.
Yesterday my face stayed red and hot all day. I wasn't feverish at all. It is the same reaction I get from eating almonds. I am wondering if it is the new coffee; or the combination of cleaning solutions throughout the house, or if the goats ate something I'm allergic to that my pasteurizing wouldn't kill. I was set on it being the pigging out on goat cheese (Chevre), but then I remember the same thing happening when working at the last hospital I worked at 7 or so years ago. It happened whenever someone was cleaning.
The cheese I made a couple of weeks ago turned out much better than I expected up to the point I left off. I hope it lasts until late July, when we can cut it. I followed the culturing recipe to the letter. A candy thermometer stayed in the milk the whole time. It was a full day of standing over the stove or sink and watching the temperature closely, and I sure hope there is a reward for that! The curds cut nicely, and shrunk nicely when cooked. I strained the curds into cheesecloth when they were ready, and tied them tight for pressing.
PRESSING
I used the goat cheddar recipe in Ricki Carroll's book, "Home Cheesemaking." It took a long time. My boughten cheese mold wasn't big enough, and I was worried it might not be strong enough to contain a cheese with 50 lbs of weight on it, so I cut out the bottom of a Maxwell House coffee can, and poked some holes in the side. My 17 year old son - the brain that he is - suggested using his barbell weights when my nursing books weren't balancing well. We found a lid strong enough and the right enough size to fit over the top of the cheese, to put the weights on inside the can. His 2 1/2 pound weights fit right into the coffee can. Then he found a bowl that breached the top of the can enough to add some 5 pound weights. Those were wider than the top. Then he found some of my 3 brothers' old 10 pound weights out in the barn, where their old bench press is. We came up with 50 pounds even! We felt ingenious. And they balanced enough to not fall over.
So I pressed the cheese for the allotted amount of time with 20 lbs, then 30 lbs, then 50 lbs. I am eyeing that old cider press out in the barn and thinking of bigger cheeses with a wind-down top...like the professional presses. I just wonder how they figure out exactly how much weight is being applied with those.
In looking for something to drain the cheese on, I recalled that my friend Babs had talked me into buying a sushi making kit I'd never used, and I thought the bamboo matt would be perfect. It was perpetually moist, but it did the job draining/drying the cheese on top of a cutting board. The salt was not good for my already warped and cracked cutting board, but oh well.
The cheese was beautiful. I had ordered cheese salt from Leeners, and salted it until it was mostly dried. You are supposed to salt it once per day, and turn it. I think the oils might have come out forever, and was reading in some Yahoo cheese groups that some peoples' cheese was too dry and cracked, or had stayed too moist and molded. I took an uneducated guess and decided when the whey had stopped and it looked like oil coming, and the oil flow was slowing, to wax it.
WAXING
I had never waxed a cheese. But mother made candles when I was little, and I've made them too. I melted the cheese wax in a clean double boiler pot that had lost its handle. (I am planning on getting new cookware soon anyway). The recommended boar bristle brush painted the wax on just fine. I had to hold where it was cooled long enough for the other side to cool enough to hold, and be careful my fingers didn't go through the wax to expose the cheese. I knew from a cheese my mother made when I was small that if any cheese showed through, mold would take over and ruin it probably.
AGEING
There was a mesh lemon bag from the store. I put the cheese in that and went down to the springhouse. We have an old walk-in springhouse made for a dairy farm, with a run-off trough just the right size to set milk cans in. There are old hooks all over the ceiling. I had always thought they were to hang cheeses on. But my dad's first cousin who just turned 90 and kind of grew up here, says they were for hanging shelves. They kept butter and cottage cheese on the shelves to keep the rodents and other large living things out of it. The shelves were hung on chains. Well, I'm using the hooks for cheese. We might get some shelves up, maybe, later. The springhouse is supposed to stay between 50-55 degrees year round, and it sort of does. But the door is rotted off right now. My brother and husband are planning to fix it along with the 1000 other projects on the farm. So for now it is staying 60-70 degrees on a very warm day. And varmints can get in the open door easily. All it would take is one coyote jump...so I'm praying my cheese will be okay.
The old saying that he "cut the cheese" is taking on new meaning for me. I dearly hope that when that event takes place 60-90 days from now, that the aroma is a good one!!! It is a long time to wait.
Yesterday my face stayed red and hot all day. I wasn't feverish at all. It is the same reaction I get from eating almonds. I am wondering if it is the new coffee; or the combination of cleaning solutions throughout the house, or if the goats ate something I'm allergic to that my pasteurizing wouldn't kill. I was set on it being the pigging out on goat cheese (Chevre), but then I remember the same thing happening when working at the last hospital I worked at 7 or so years ago. It happened whenever someone was cleaning.
The cheese I made a couple of weeks ago turned out much better than I expected up to the point I left off. I hope it lasts until late July, when we can cut it. I followed the culturing recipe to the letter. A candy thermometer stayed in the milk the whole time. It was a full day of standing over the stove or sink and watching the temperature closely, and I sure hope there is a reward for that! The curds cut nicely, and shrunk nicely when cooked. I strained the curds into cheesecloth when they were ready, and tied them tight for pressing.
PRESSING
I used the goat cheddar recipe in Ricki Carroll's book, "Home Cheesemaking." It took a long time. My boughten cheese mold wasn't big enough, and I was worried it might not be strong enough to contain a cheese with 50 lbs of weight on it, so I cut out the bottom of a Maxwell House coffee can, and poked some holes in the side. My 17 year old son - the brain that he is - suggested using his barbell weights when my nursing books weren't balancing well. We found a lid strong enough and the right enough size to fit over the top of the cheese, to put the weights on inside the can. His 2 1/2 pound weights fit right into the coffee can. Then he found a bowl that breached the top of the can enough to add some 5 pound weights. Those were wider than the top. Then he found some of my 3 brothers' old 10 pound weights out in the barn, where their old bench press is. We came up with 50 pounds even! We felt ingenious. And they balanced enough to not fall over.
So I pressed the cheese for the allotted amount of time with 20 lbs, then 30 lbs, then 50 lbs. I am eyeing that old cider press out in the barn and thinking of bigger cheeses with a wind-down top...like the professional presses. I just wonder how they figure out exactly how much weight is being applied with those.
In looking for something to drain the cheese on, I recalled that my friend Babs had talked me into buying a sushi making kit I'd never used, and I thought the bamboo matt would be perfect. It was perpetually moist, but it did the job draining/drying the cheese on top of a cutting board. The salt was not good for my already warped and cracked cutting board, but oh well.
The cheese was beautiful. I had ordered cheese salt from Leeners, and salted it until it was mostly dried. You are supposed to salt it once per day, and turn it. I think the oils might have come out forever, and was reading in some Yahoo cheese groups that some peoples' cheese was too dry and cracked, or had stayed too moist and molded. I took an uneducated guess and decided when the whey had stopped and it looked like oil coming, and the oil flow was slowing, to wax it.
WAXING
I had never waxed a cheese. But mother made candles when I was little, and I've made them too. I melted the cheese wax in a clean double boiler pot that had lost its handle. (I am planning on getting new cookware soon anyway). The recommended boar bristle brush painted the wax on just fine. I had to hold where it was cooled long enough for the other side to cool enough to hold, and be careful my fingers didn't go through the wax to expose the cheese. I knew from a cheese my mother made when I was small that if any cheese showed through, mold would take over and ruin it probably.
AGEING
There was a mesh lemon bag from the store. I put the cheese in that and went down to the springhouse. We have an old walk-in springhouse made for a dairy farm, with a run-off trough just the right size to set milk cans in. There are old hooks all over the ceiling. I had always thought they were to hang cheeses on. But my dad's first cousin who just turned 90 and kind of grew up here, says they were for hanging shelves. They kept butter and cottage cheese on the shelves to keep the rodents and other large living things out of it. The shelves were hung on chains. Well, I'm using the hooks for cheese. We might get some shelves up, maybe, later. The springhouse is supposed to stay between 50-55 degrees year round, and it sort of does. But the door is rotted off right now. My brother and husband are planning to fix it along with the 1000 other projects on the farm. So for now it is staying 60-70 degrees on a very warm day. And varmints can get in the open door easily. All it would take is one coyote jump...so I'm praying my cheese will be okay.
The old saying that he "cut the cheese" is taking on new meaning for me. I dearly hope that when that event takes place 60-90 days from now, that the aroma is a good one!!! It is a long time to wait.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Death again
Ashley the spring lamb didn't make it. About a week ago, Bruce went out to the barn and found her dead. She had been doing wonderfully, and it was a suprise.
He had felt she was strong enough to leave with her mother, but was going out twice a day and making sure she got something to eat. The ewe seemed to be letting her nurse along with her twin brother, after a couple of weeks of being held still for the act. I was working a couple of stretches of day shift (10 with 2 off in the middle), or maybe I would have been more involved. I might have been able to relieve Bruce of the fuss a little more. I might even have made her a house lamb, and not tried to graft her back onto her mother.
As it was, day shift is pretty rough on me. I get up between 3:30 and 4 am, rush, rush, rush; feel kind of zombified and not all quite there by 4 or 5pm when I get home, and try to get to bed by 8 or 9 to feel refreshed enough for the next day, and the next.
I felt obligated to update, since I wrote about her.
First, there is that her mother rejected her to begin with, and it was only by chance that I even found her. Once in a while, such efforts pan out; but more often they don't. The "when they don'ts" have had me on the verge of giving up farming on numerous occaisions. To keep going, one almost has to rationalize death a little. It is very similar to nursing. Everyone rationalizes in their own way - and needs to.
I don't get as devastated as I used to. But I tend to disconnect - to not talk about it - for a while. I repress, which seems both to others and to myself like I Don't Feel. But then, it always catches up with me some time. How could a little lamb, that I saved, just up and die like that? It catches up when I am alone, and feel safe to think and feel. I don't like to really think and feel around others, because I have to take into account their reactions.
We ordered peeps. It is complicated - maybe my husband's and my way of dealing with death; maybe we just like chickens. And hate them too sometimes. We've wanted more, and I've wanted Buff Orpingtons. So that is what we got. By the time they grow up, some of them die too. They trample and pick at each other. We've already lost about 4 or 5, just 2 days into it. We still have 20 or so.
I am reading a book called, "That Dark and Bloody River," still. I mentioned it several posts ago. It is about the settling and warring over the Ohio River. In the larger picture, death isn't so unusual. Natural death is, in fact, almost a little more sweet. Not desired; not happy; but a whole lot better than intentional.
He had felt she was strong enough to leave with her mother, but was going out twice a day and making sure she got something to eat. The ewe seemed to be letting her nurse along with her twin brother, after a couple of weeks of being held still for the act. I was working a couple of stretches of day shift (10 with 2 off in the middle), or maybe I would have been more involved. I might have been able to relieve Bruce of the fuss a little more. I might even have made her a house lamb, and not tried to graft her back onto her mother.
As it was, day shift is pretty rough on me. I get up between 3:30 and 4 am, rush, rush, rush; feel kind of zombified and not all quite there by 4 or 5pm when I get home, and try to get to bed by 8 or 9 to feel refreshed enough for the next day, and the next.
I felt obligated to update, since I wrote about her.
First, there is that her mother rejected her to begin with, and it was only by chance that I even found her. Once in a while, such efforts pan out; but more often they don't. The "when they don'ts" have had me on the verge of giving up farming on numerous occaisions. To keep going, one almost has to rationalize death a little. It is very similar to nursing. Everyone rationalizes in their own way - and needs to.
I don't get as devastated as I used to. But I tend to disconnect - to not talk about it - for a while. I repress, which seems both to others and to myself like I Don't Feel. But then, it always catches up with me some time. How could a little lamb, that I saved, just up and die like that? It catches up when I am alone, and feel safe to think and feel. I don't like to really think and feel around others, because I have to take into account their reactions.
We ordered peeps. It is complicated - maybe my husband's and my way of dealing with death; maybe we just like chickens. And hate them too sometimes. We've wanted more, and I've wanted Buff Orpingtons. So that is what we got. By the time they grow up, some of them die too. They trample and pick at each other. We've already lost about 4 or 5, just 2 days into it. We still have 20 or so.
I am reading a book called, "That Dark and Bloody River," still. I mentioned it several posts ago. It is about the settling and warring over the Ohio River. In the larger picture, death isn't so unusual. Natural death is, in fact, almost a little more sweet. Not desired; not happy; but a whole lot better than intentional.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Legalizing Health
The medical profession is old enough to have established protocols for just about everything. When someone wants to think outside of the box - say use alternative medicine - it doesn't just threaten a doctor's sense of control over the practice. It goes against the grain for another reason. The established protocol has been developed over literally hundreds of years, and in some cases, maybe a couple thousand. Another protocol isn't used because it hasn't been shown to be the best one.
It is sort of like a tree identification book my brother had as a kid. Starting at the beginning, it asks simple questions, like does the tree have compound leaves? If yes, go to page _; if no, go to page _. And so on. It makes it easy to identify the tree. Likewise, medicine has diagnosing steps. If a patient asks me what is wrong with them on step one, I'm going to tell them, we're doing THIS to find out. They complain that nobody is TELLING them anything. You can't read page one of a book, and expect to know the whole story.
The point I want to make here though, is that the medical profession and diagnosing is not quite as clear cut in many areas as tree identification. There are some things that are taken for granted as just being the way it is. Sometimes a better way comes up, but a doctor is taught to make sure trials and studies have been done to support the efficacy of the treatment. That doesn't mean a new way is wrong. Medicine is a little more like math than tree identification - there might be several ways to solve the same problem. BUT, some studies have already produced poor results for much of the alternative medicine world, or simply have not been done. But a doctor might have to read every periodical and every study result every day of her life to know new treatments.
Where, though, do you decide that protocol needs to change with the times as opposed to repeating old mistakes? For instance, in the birthing industry (and it IS an industry), what ever happened to Dr. Bradley's method of birth? I personally believe that it got lost in the realm of hyperlitigation. Its being lost has nothing to do with safe birthing practices, and everything to do with why people sue, perceived convenience promoted by drug industries, and doctors protecting themselves. You can sue the medical profession for just about anything and get away with it.
In the raw milk industry, there is an established idea by the government about who can raise milk, and who can sell milk. Contraversy is taking place because many people want to have the right to buy and drink raw milk. The USDA doesn't want people to drink raw milk, and cites disease as the main reason, but the jury isn't out on the real reason according to many people. Because there is 10 times the chance you can get sick from deli meat than you can from raw milk, and you are still aloud to buy deli meat. This is detailed in David Gumpert's blog, "The Complete Patient:"
">Link
While I agree that it would be nice if we could reduce disease, I disagree that we should be litigated into doing so. People should have the ability and the trained assistance to have babies naturally, and even at home, and to drink raw milk. It is a cliche, but both are safer than getting into your car each day. There is an imbalance of what is legal and what is not.
100 years ago, most rural families had their own milk cow and chickens. Prior to that, for 2000 years, most people drank raw milk and had babies at home. Now our government is making it so we are not allowed to, and I have to ask, can this be safe?
It is sort of like a tree identification book my brother had as a kid. Starting at the beginning, it asks simple questions, like does the tree have compound leaves? If yes, go to page _; if no, go to page _. And so on. It makes it easy to identify the tree. Likewise, medicine has diagnosing steps. If a patient asks me what is wrong with them on step one, I'm going to tell them, we're doing THIS to find out. They complain that nobody is TELLING them anything. You can't read page one of a book, and expect to know the whole story.
The point I want to make here though, is that the medical profession and diagnosing is not quite as clear cut in many areas as tree identification. There are some things that are taken for granted as just being the way it is. Sometimes a better way comes up, but a doctor is taught to make sure trials and studies have been done to support the efficacy of the treatment. That doesn't mean a new way is wrong. Medicine is a little more like math than tree identification - there might be several ways to solve the same problem. BUT, some studies have already produced poor results for much of the alternative medicine world, or simply have not been done. But a doctor might have to read every periodical and every study result every day of her life to know new treatments.
Where, though, do you decide that protocol needs to change with the times as opposed to repeating old mistakes? For instance, in the birthing industry (and it IS an industry), what ever happened to Dr. Bradley's method of birth? I personally believe that it got lost in the realm of hyperlitigation. Its being lost has nothing to do with safe birthing practices, and everything to do with why people sue, perceived convenience promoted by drug industries, and doctors protecting themselves. You can sue the medical profession for just about anything and get away with it.
In the raw milk industry, there is an established idea by the government about who can raise milk, and who can sell milk. Contraversy is taking place because many people want to have the right to buy and drink raw milk. The USDA doesn't want people to drink raw milk, and cites disease as the main reason, but the jury isn't out on the real reason according to many people. Because there is 10 times the chance you can get sick from deli meat than you can from raw milk, and you are still aloud to buy deli meat. This is detailed in David Gumpert's blog, "The Complete Patient:"
">Link
While I agree that it would be nice if we could reduce disease, I disagree that we should be litigated into doing so. People should have the ability and the trained assistance to have babies naturally, and even at home, and to drink raw milk. It is a cliche, but both are safer than getting into your car each day. There is an imbalance of what is legal and what is not.
100 years ago, most rural families had their own milk cow and chickens. Prior to that, for 2000 years, most people drank raw milk and had babies at home. Now our government is making it so we are not allowed to, and I have to ask, can this be safe?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Chevre, Paneer and Butter
We have goat milk. My husband is milking 3 goats. This year, we opted to take the boy kids to the sale barn for the Easter sale. In the past, we have wethered them, or kept them until the fall goat sales. Always, a middle man for meat producers buys them all. So I know they get butchered, and most likely end up on a Jewish or Muslim table for some religious feast. I thought it would be harder to take kids, most likely used for Passover, but as it turned out, I think it was easier. On Easter, I thought of them being the center of someone's table. They were treated a little better at the sale. They didn't grow up to inbreed with the rest of the herd.
Anyways, back to the milk part. I figured my husband would want to dry the mothers up, and the milking would only last a short while. He is enjoying milking, and doing it for production, from cross-bred brush goats. The milk is mild-flavored, with high butterfat.
Over a year ago, I ordered a bunch of cheese supplies. I LOVE the expensive Chevre at the store, so Chevre culture was one I ordered. I have made it twice, and it was delectable. Yum, yum! I have one more packet of culture.
The retirement home my folks live at has a director currently from Kashmir, India, with an American wife. They love to make cheese from raw milk. He told me how paneer was made, and I am going to try it. My mother made a lot of cottage cheese when I was growing up, and I have made quite good cottage cheese from goat milk in the past. Paneer actually looks easier. I'm doing it tomorrow.
This morning, I discovered that some milk I overcooked coagulated too much. It is not spoiled, but it did something to the proteins. I had some that I had carefully pasteurized at a lower temperature that the cream had seperated out on. I took the cream off this morning so I could use the milk in my cereal, and put the cream in a clean salsa jar. While I used the breast pump, I shook the jar. I shook it some more after my shower. Finally, I got goat butter!! I rinsed it and salted it, and stuck it in the fridge. It is very mild and tasty.
I am so proud of myself!
There are a few things I have learned about cheesemaking. Pasteurization at the lowest possible temp to kill the bacteria properly creates the best results - overcooking ruins some of the proteins that make a nice cheese.
I am anxious to try the paneer now. I want to try mozzerella or cheddar, but I have to order some lipase for that.
Anyways, back to the milk part. I figured my husband would want to dry the mothers up, and the milking would only last a short while. He is enjoying milking, and doing it for production, from cross-bred brush goats. The milk is mild-flavored, with high butterfat.
Over a year ago, I ordered a bunch of cheese supplies. I LOVE the expensive Chevre at the store, so Chevre culture was one I ordered. I have made it twice, and it was delectable. Yum, yum! I have one more packet of culture.
The retirement home my folks live at has a director currently from Kashmir, India, with an American wife. They love to make cheese from raw milk. He told me how paneer was made, and I am going to try it. My mother made a lot of cottage cheese when I was growing up, and I have made quite good cottage cheese from goat milk in the past. Paneer actually looks easier. I'm doing it tomorrow.
This morning, I discovered that some milk I overcooked coagulated too much. It is not spoiled, but it did something to the proteins. I had some that I had carefully pasteurized at a lower temperature that the cream had seperated out on. I took the cream off this morning so I could use the milk in my cereal, and put the cream in a clean salsa jar. While I used the breast pump, I shook the jar. I shook it some more after my shower. Finally, I got goat butter!! I rinsed it and salted it, and stuck it in the fridge. It is very mild and tasty.
I am so proud of myself!
There are a few things I have learned about cheesemaking. Pasteurization at the lowest possible temp to kill the bacteria properly creates the best results - overcooking ruins some of the proteins that make a nice cheese.
I am anxious to try the paneer now. I want to try mozzerella or cheddar, but I have to order some lipase for that.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Ashley the April lamb
Tuesday, I had the day off for pulling a double on Monday. In the afternoon, I put baby Eilidh in the backpack, and headed out into the pasture with the loppers for my favorite pastime - cutting brambles the goats have eaten the bottoms off of.
Not far out, under a very old and large Ash tree that is surrounded with slippery elms, box elders, wild cherry, and bittersweet and grapevines, a ewe was standing alone, away from the herd. I looked for and was not suprised to see a lamb wobbling around her. Then, I noticed a splotch of white on the ground next to her. If it was a twin, she was ignoring it. I waited a while, knowing that if I disturbed her, she'd be less likely to clean it and get it on its feet. So I continued with my loppers for a little while. The white splotch stayed there, and the sheep ignored it.
When the standing lamb began nursing, and the ewe licked it and began moving away from the white splotch, I moved closer. It was a lamb, after all. It let out a very weak bleat. It was laying in mud, and was still soaked with afterbirth. The ewe walked around, sniffed it numerous times, left it and licked her standing, dry ram lamb. I picked up the slimy, muddy lamb and carried it back to the house, balancing the baby in the backpack and the loppers under my arm. My 17 y/o son helped me get the baby in the pack off my back. I dried off the lamb, rubbing some circulation into it, and put it in a cardboard box on a heating pad. It was cold, but alive. I warmed up some goat milk (we're milking 3 right now), and it sucked hungrily. Good sign.
Today, the lamb is not only standing, but is trying to nurse off our pantlegs. It has climbed out of the box in the kitchen numerous times. I've named her Ashley.
Not far out, under a very old and large Ash tree that is surrounded with slippery elms, box elders, wild cherry, and bittersweet and grapevines, a ewe was standing alone, away from the herd. I looked for and was not suprised to see a lamb wobbling around her. Then, I noticed a splotch of white on the ground next to her. If it was a twin, she was ignoring it. I waited a while, knowing that if I disturbed her, she'd be less likely to clean it and get it on its feet. So I continued with my loppers for a little while. The white splotch stayed there, and the sheep ignored it.
When the standing lamb began nursing, and the ewe licked it and began moving away from the white splotch, I moved closer. It was a lamb, after all. It let out a very weak bleat. It was laying in mud, and was still soaked with afterbirth. The ewe walked around, sniffed it numerous times, left it and licked her standing, dry ram lamb. I picked up the slimy, muddy lamb and carried it back to the house, balancing the baby in the backpack and the loppers under my arm. My 17 y/o son helped me get the baby in the pack off my back. I dried off the lamb, rubbing some circulation into it, and put it in a cardboard box on a heating pad. It was cold, but alive. I warmed up some goat milk (we're milking 3 right now), and it sucked hungrily. Good sign.
Today, the lamb is not only standing, but is trying to nurse off our pantlegs. It has climbed out of the box in the kitchen numerous times. I've named her Ashley.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
What is really important
I have been going up and down 5 flights of stairs a couple times per week for 1 1/2 months now, and I've only lost 1 lb.
Yesterday I got recertified in ACLS. That's Advanced Cardiac Life Support. That is what you have to know to run a code in a hospital, and all of us lucky nurses who get to be on the code team have to be certified. It is required of those who work on the more critical cardiac floors. It used to be you went around to stations with a real live person and simulated running a code. Now that we have computers - wonderful things that they are - the people who came up with ACLS have developed a computer simulation instead. You have to click on the buttons of what to do in the correct sequence in order to pass each scenario. There are about 10 scenarios. Joe comes into the ER with dizziness for a week, and he's passed out twice. You put him on the monitor, see that he has bradycardia, take his vitals, put oxygen on, call for help, and then pull down the list of medications you might give him. If you give him the wrong one, the computer kills him. It took me 7 hours.
Today I hung out with the baby and read a book. I didn't feel like doing anything else after yesterday. I nursed the baby for hours and hours. I read Zane Grey's book, "The Last Trail." It is the third of the trilogy about the settlement of Fort Henry and Wheeling, WV. I am really into Ohio River history in this area right now. After I finished the book, I started another, called, "That Dark and Bloody River," by Eckert. Around 4 in the afternoon, I needed to take a walk.
My husband went with me. He helped me put the baby on my back. The farm is in such a state of disrepair with me working full time that I'm not sure what I'm doing here sometimes. But I keep plugging away. He showed me where he dragged my alpha doe a few weeks ago when we found her dead behind the barn. She wasn't there. The coyotes probably drug her off. Someone on a geneology site I belong to posted about cougars being back in the area, and I thought it would be a novel idea if it were really a cougar, but I feel more comfortable with the idea of a coyote.
Then I came in and cleaned the meat off a turkey that has been sitting cooked in the fridge for a week that the kids have been picking the meat off of here and there when they're hungry. I made some broth, and cooked some stewish meat for supper. Then I read some more. It was a lazy thing to do.
I have been working full time since October. I feel as though my body is beginning to shut down at times - pumping, washing pump parts, nursing the baby, running to work, taking care of people with very sick hearts. The snow is melting, and it is almost spring. I wanted to take the loppers with me, but there was a baby on my back. I picked up some old high tensile wire that is all over the pasture and started winding it up. Some past boyfriend of mine had it put up so I could keep some of his horses. Even though I told the guys where to put the fence, they disregarded what I said, and the places that the posts are render their position unuseable. Bruce didn't want to pick up fence tonight. I could have stayed out there and picked it all up, even with a baby on my back. Maybe I should have. The baby didn't mind. She was talking to the goats.
I start another 6 day stretch in the morning - or rather the afternoon. The nurse manager said I could cut down to part time again on the next schedule or the one after. Financially it will hurt. But there is a trade off here. There is a whole lot more to it, but I'm not going into it here. I'm just so glad it is almost spring.
We traded my alpha doe's twin orphans with my brother and his wife for 4 colorful Indian Runner ducks. Yesterday, they and the white pekins finally found a spring in the pasture. Heretofore, they have lived in my garden. I've wondered if was any use starting seeds this year. They really like the pasture, and I'm hoping they spend more and more time there. We have 7 ducks total, and can they ever make a racket!
Baby is asleep on my lap. Is there anything more I really need in life?
Yesterday I got recertified in ACLS. That's Advanced Cardiac Life Support. That is what you have to know to run a code in a hospital, and all of us lucky nurses who get to be on the code team have to be certified. It is required of those who work on the more critical cardiac floors. It used to be you went around to stations with a real live person and simulated running a code. Now that we have computers - wonderful things that they are - the people who came up with ACLS have developed a computer simulation instead. You have to click on the buttons of what to do in the correct sequence in order to pass each scenario. There are about 10 scenarios. Joe comes into the ER with dizziness for a week, and he's passed out twice. You put him on the monitor, see that he has bradycardia, take his vitals, put oxygen on, call for help, and then pull down the list of medications you might give him. If you give him the wrong one, the computer kills him. It took me 7 hours.
Today I hung out with the baby and read a book. I didn't feel like doing anything else after yesterday. I nursed the baby for hours and hours. I read Zane Grey's book, "The Last Trail." It is the third of the trilogy about the settlement of Fort Henry and Wheeling, WV. I am really into Ohio River history in this area right now. After I finished the book, I started another, called, "That Dark and Bloody River," by Eckert. Around 4 in the afternoon, I needed to take a walk.
My husband went with me. He helped me put the baby on my back. The farm is in such a state of disrepair with me working full time that I'm not sure what I'm doing here sometimes. But I keep plugging away. He showed me where he dragged my alpha doe a few weeks ago when we found her dead behind the barn. She wasn't there. The coyotes probably drug her off. Someone on a geneology site I belong to posted about cougars being back in the area, and I thought it would be a novel idea if it were really a cougar, but I feel more comfortable with the idea of a coyote.
Then I came in and cleaned the meat off a turkey that has been sitting cooked in the fridge for a week that the kids have been picking the meat off of here and there when they're hungry. I made some broth, and cooked some stewish meat for supper. Then I read some more. It was a lazy thing to do.
I have been working full time since October. I feel as though my body is beginning to shut down at times - pumping, washing pump parts, nursing the baby, running to work, taking care of people with very sick hearts. The snow is melting, and it is almost spring. I wanted to take the loppers with me, but there was a baby on my back. I picked up some old high tensile wire that is all over the pasture and started winding it up. Some past boyfriend of mine had it put up so I could keep some of his horses. Even though I told the guys where to put the fence, they disregarded what I said, and the places that the posts are render their position unuseable. Bruce didn't want to pick up fence tonight. I could have stayed out there and picked it all up, even with a baby on my back. Maybe I should have. The baby didn't mind. She was talking to the goats.
I start another 6 day stretch in the morning - or rather the afternoon. The nurse manager said I could cut down to part time again on the next schedule or the one after. Financially it will hurt. But there is a trade off here. There is a whole lot more to it, but I'm not going into it here. I'm just so glad it is almost spring.
We traded my alpha doe's twin orphans with my brother and his wife for 4 colorful Indian Runner ducks. Yesterday, they and the white pekins finally found a spring in the pasture. Heretofore, they have lived in my garden. I've wondered if was any use starting seeds this year. They really like the pasture, and I'm hoping they spend more and more time there. We have 7 ducks total, and can they ever make a racket!
Baby is asleep on my lap. Is there anything more I really need in life?
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
You Can't Buy a Cucumber Attack for $2,000
It's true.
I didn't say it. But I thought it. My children are always teasing me when things like this come out of my mouth. Where do they come from?
Well, as I was walking in the door tonight, after a long night's work on a cardiac unit, I was thinking about the trees. The moon shone through the tall hemlock in the back yard that my great grandfather planted there for my great grandmother. The walnut trees have such an allure in the winter moonlight, leaving shadows in the snow. Those same black walnut trees are worth about $2000 apiece, and I was thinking, you can't buy a new walnut tree like that for $2000. Once it is gone, it is gone. If we sell them for timber, we will have money, but no walnut trees, ever again. You can grow more, but I would be 80, or dead before they'd be like that again. Is it worth $2000? I kind of like the trees the way they are. I'd miss them. I'd miss them almost as much as I'd miss a person if they died, and life is supposed to be priceless. Are the walnut trees that priceless?
Anyways, the newspaper on the top of a stack of newspapers on the back porch had a headline on it that caught my eye as I walked in the door. It was about Iraq. It said another attack had happened. Who knows what day or year that newspaper was. It could have been any in the last 3 or 4.
And...on the kitchen table was a new package of seeds that had come in the mail. It was cucumber seeds I had ordered. And the words just went through my head - just like that:
"You can't buy a cucumber attack for $2000."
What does it mean when your mind jumbles a small chain of events like that. About 8 or 9 years ago, I would have joked that I was getting Alzheimers, but it is such an old joke that most seasoned nurses cringe when someone says it. (My ex-husband likes that sort of cringe). Or it would worry me, because once on the series, "Murder She Wrote," Angela Lansbury solves a mystery where a woman leaves out letters in her words that she writes, because the woman has a brain tumor. (My ex-husband used to tease me maliciously when I said something stupid, that it was my brain tumor talking). I leave out letters in words I write all the time - especially the first letter. Should I get a CT scan of the brain?
You know, we have the weirdest dreams. But after reading Freud's biography by Irving Stone, and writing down and thinking through some of my own dreams, I think our brains put things like this together for reasons. It is a puzzle, and if we figure it out, it gives us insight into our subconscious thinking.
Maybe it means that I can't really make money off of this farm. Or maybe it means that ...planting cucumbers is not going to help me save $2000 on my grocery bills. I'll have to think about it a little longer. Maybe I'll ponder it as I drink my Mother's Milk tea, and cuddle my 7 month old baby, and drift blissfully off to sleep, feeling the ache in my legs from walking up 6 flights of stairs at work instead of taking the elevators to the 7th floor, in effort to get back into shape and lose weight. The bed feels so nice when your muscles are sore. Your husband and baby feel so warm when it is snowy and cold outside, and the moon makes shadows under the giant black walnut trees.
I didn't say it. But I thought it. My children are always teasing me when things like this come out of my mouth. Where do they come from?
Well, as I was walking in the door tonight, after a long night's work on a cardiac unit, I was thinking about the trees. The moon shone through the tall hemlock in the back yard that my great grandfather planted there for my great grandmother. The walnut trees have such an allure in the winter moonlight, leaving shadows in the snow. Those same black walnut trees are worth about $2000 apiece, and I was thinking, you can't buy a new walnut tree like that for $2000. Once it is gone, it is gone. If we sell them for timber, we will have money, but no walnut trees, ever again. You can grow more, but I would be 80, or dead before they'd be like that again. Is it worth $2000? I kind of like the trees the way they are. I'd miss them. I'd miss them almost as much as I'd miss a person if they died, and life is supposed to be priceless. Are the walnut trees that priceless?
Anyways, the newspaper on the top of a stack of newspapers on the back porch had a headline on it that caught my eye as I walked in the door. It was about Iraq. It said another attack had happened. Who knows what day or year that newspaper was. It could have been any in the last 3 or 4.
And...on the kitchen table was a new package of seeds that had come in the mail. It was cucumber seeds I had ordered. And the words just went through my head - just like that:
"You can't buy a cucumber attack for $2000."
What does it mean when your mind jumbles a small chain of events like that. About 8 or 9 years ago, I would have joked that I was getting Alzheimers, but it is such an old joke that most seasoned nurses cringe when someone says it. (My ex-husband likes that sort of cringe). Or it would worry me, because once on the series, "Murder She Wrote," Angela Lansbury solves a mystery where a woman leaves out letters in her words that she writes, because the woman has a brain tumor. (My ex-husband used to tease me maliciously when I said something stupid, that it was my brain tumor talking). I leave out letters in words I write all the time - especially the first letter. Should I get a CT scan of the brain?
You know, we have the weirdest dreams. But after reading Freud's biography by Irving Stone, and writing down and thinking through some of my own dreams, I think our brains put things like this together for reasons. It is a puzzle, and if we figure it out, it gives us insight into our subconscious thinking.
Maybe it means that I can't really make money off of this farm. Or maybe it means that ...planting cucumbers is not going to help me save $2000 on my grocery bills. I'll have to think about it a little longer. Maybe I'll ponder it as I drink my Mother's Milk tea, and cuddle my 7 month old baby, and drift blissfully off to sleep, feeling the ache in my legs from walking up 6 flights of stairs at work instead of taking the elevators to the 7th floor, in effort to get back into shape and lose weight. The bed feels so nice when your muscles are sore. Your husband and baby feel so warm when it is snowy and cold outside, and the moon makes shadows under the giant black walnut trees.
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